问答题 Things aren't always as they appear, a fact of life confirmed for me firsthand in 1990, just after I received my Ph.D. in physics. I had just started a temporary postdoctoral position at a major laboratory and had the opportunity to talk with scientists whose postdoctoral fellowships were ending. 21) Although my advisers had warned me that finding a permanent position in science would be difficult, what I discovered was shocking — even the best young scientists I knew were having difficulty securing permanent employment. So it was both puzzling and disturbing to see press reports claiming that America didn't have enough scientists.
These alarming reports were epidemic in 1990. Frequently the news stories had hyperbolic headlines like SHORTAGE OF SCIENTISTS APPROACHES A CRISIS AS MORE STUDENTS DROP OUT OF THE FIELD, and they often quoted National Science Foundation (NSF) officials. 22) For a government obsessed with international competitiveness, stories of a shortage of scientists and engineers were terrifying, especially because they appeared to come from a trusted source — the NSF. The U.S. Congress, having caught the "scientist- shortage fever", started passing laws to solve the "crisis". During this time the NSF apparently made no effort to set the record straight. Amazingly, the NSF's director, Erich Bloch, used the shortage idea to argue for increases in the foundation's budget.
The National Science Foundation's behavior was puzzling. The officials presumably knew that the job market was tight — yet they claimed just the opposite. Clearly, something had to be done to alert policymakers to the plight of my friends, so I created the Young Scientists' Network (YSN). At first the YSN operated as a weekly newsletter — distributed by electronic mail to about 30 physicists — with information about jobs, press reports and calls for political action. As time passed, the membership increased and the newsletter evolved into an "electronic forum" that was distributed daily. During this early period, representatives of the network presented our concerns to science-policy leaders in face-to-face meetings. 23) In the spring of 1992 this political activity ultimately led me to testify at a congressional hearing about the NSF's apparent advocacy of the scientist-shortage notion — an idea that YSN members had by then dubbed The Myth.
Congress, heavily influenced by The Myth, passed the Immigration Act of 1990, which included special provisions that increase immigration quotas for people with technical degrees. 24) Thanks in large part to the efforts of the YSN, the policymakers now realize that the immigration program is a bad idea. The Senate has already inserted language into a new immigration bill that would modify the previous law, and the House of Representatives is expected to concur.
Killing the Immigration Act will not improve the job market. 25) Over the next few years the demand for scientists and engineers will probably remain weak, because of corporate and government budget constraints.